This December, Magnum Photos Print Room pops up at the 99 Mount Street Gallery in Mayfair withan exhibition of classic portraits of cinematic royalty, both historic and contemporary.

Collectively Magnum’s archive of film imagery, the product of working on film sets capturing behind-the-scenes moments and photographing film directors, actors and actresses on and off camera,includes a large part of the history of cinema. The pictures included in this exhibition date primarilyfrom the Fifties and Sixties, with the inclusion of a small selection from the Twenty First century, andare a mix of vintage and contemporary prints.

Included here are images famous beyond the reputation of the individual photographer or the Magnumagency, pictures such as those by Dennis Stock of James Dean in a rain swept Times Square (1954)or those produced by Eve Arnold during ten years working with Marilyn Monroe from 1950 to her lastfilm, The Misfits (1961). The 1950s, a period when the cult of the cinema idol grew, coincided withMagnum’s own ‘Golden Age’ – a time before television was widely available and the picturemagazines reigned supreme as the main disseminators of news and publicity. Individual Magnumphotographers forged friendships with movie stars and directors, getting the kind of unchecked accessno longer conceivable to today’s celebrities.

Magnum’s photographers were commissioned for off duty stories, formal press shots and work on filmsets. The strength of many of these portraits is that they are both candid and respectful. Such is thework of one of the agency’s founding members, David “Chim” Seymour (1911-1956), who wasassigned to shoot a relatively unknown Sophia Loren in her Rome apartment in 1955. Rather thancapturing the off duty reportage he expected, Loren chose to play up to the camera in one afteranother pose prepared with a nod to her role model Marilyn Monroe. The best-known image from thisseries depicts the actress atop a table on her balcony in heels, fishnets and bodice, displaying herglorious curves in a self-conscious embodiment of a screen idol.

In the Sixties, when Mount Street was “swinging”, David Hurn worked in London photographingmodels and rising movie stars. Amongst these pictures are those taken of his friend Jane Fonda: ablack and white vintage print from the Italian set of her film Barbarella (1967) and two cibachromesfrom a series of publicity shots for the film, recording Fonda’s outlandish and sexy wardrobe devisedby her husband, the film’s director, Roger Vadim.

Paolo Pellegrin’s series of colour photographs of Oscar nominees taken for the New York Times in2008 are a lesson in contemporary “off duty” portraiture. Working within the confines of the carefullycontrolled access that in this age of celebrity maintains a film star’s mystique as well as privacy,Pellegrin’s photographs were grabbed in hotel rooms or the backs of cars on the way to press events.Despite these limitations, he artfully captures an introspective mood in pictures like that of KateWinslet, which transcend the rush and bustle of promotion.

Magnum Photos is delighted to be working with the 99 Mount Street Gallery in a location previouslyinhabited for many years by Eve Arnold’s gallerist Zelda Cheatle and frequented by Eve Arnoldherself, who lived on the street.

Magnum Photos is a photographic cooperative of great diversity and distinction owned by its photographer members. With powerful individual vision, Magnum photographers chronicle the world and interpret its peoples, events, issues and personalities.